The girls are retained by Knox Technologies, headed by Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell), to track down stolen plans which would enable global positioning systems to isolate the precise location of anyone on Earth using wireless communications ¿ technology believed to be in the hands of Knox¿s competitors, Red Star Systems (run by Roger Corwin, played by Tim Curry).

Part Airplane!-esque parody of the action/adventure genre, part slam-bang hybrid of Wachowski Brothers & John Woo, part shampoo/conditioner commercial on the most bitchin¿ steroids around, Charlie¿s Angels bears only the loosest similarity to its ¿70s TV series namesake.

Partially guided by original series Executive Producer Leonard Goldberg, the basic CA premise & title sequence are intact, as are the series¿ theme music via a sexy adaptation by Ed Shearmur (whose entire score is hot, by the way). John Forsythe reprises his role as Charlie (the only cast member from the original series with a significant part ¿ long shots of Charlie make him look like James Brolin), but that¿s about it. The rest of the film is the product of slick & affectionate re-invention. It's an attractively self-defacing taboggin ride of high-octane fimmaking, smart enough not to take itself seriously, and¿for the most part¿savvy enough not to slow down (it¿s probably a good thing the movie didn¿t slow down long enough for audiences to actually start thinking through what they¿re watching).

This movie isn¿t about pretense ¿ it¿s about fun and energy. It doesn't push ¿chick empowerment¿ or ¿girl power¿ in your face ¿ instead, it¿s secure enough to let the women and their actions speak for themselves. It is a joyful, sexy, sassy, and energized homage to cheesy ¿70s television, wrapped in an ovaries-to-the-wall ultra-modern package. Performances are all cute -- implications that Cameron Diaz¿s butt apparently starts thinking for itself when she shakes it is both hilarious and provocative, icy Lucy Liu is sexily aloof as the straight-woman of the trio, and what real man wouldn't secretly want to get his ass kicked by Drew Barrymore¿s Dylan? Despite indications that Bill Murray¿s role as Bosely had been significantly trimmed close to release, his part still feels fully realized (as realized as any part in this movie can be) ¿ he receives a comfortable (and sometimes generous) amount of screentime.

(l-r) Dylan (Drew Barrymore), Alex (Lucy Liu), and Natalie (Cameron Diaz) sneak into Charlie's beach house...hoping to catch a glimpse of the employer they have never met or seen...in Charlie's Angels.

In what are, perhaps, the strangest sequences to be witnessed in theaters this year, Crispin Glover¿best remembered as Marty McFly¿s father from Back to the Future¿gets down and dirty Wachowski-style in action which includes full-scale martial arts acrobatics, time-expanded & compressed mid-air impacts, and a fair amount of manly gunplay. In fact, a strong Wachowski Matrix influence is evident throughout much of the film, although a few new twists are added: in Charlie¿s Angels, the trio of babes often acts as a unit when fighting, rebounding off each other and propelling each other along when in hand to hand combat (imagine a well-trained team of circus acrobats out to beat you silly, and you get the idea ¿ this ¿using the other person as an ally/weapon/object¿ technique is often employed by Jackie Chan when fighting alongside someone else), and particular moments (like an explosion¿s shockwave hitting the girls) are slowed to a snail¿s pace before snapping back into realtime, accentuating the impact and brutality of certain instances.

Despite such glorious, guilty-pleasure-ridden greatness, Charlie¿s Angels derails in its final quarter. There¿s a sense that the film¿s inventiveness, energy, and skillful manipulation of pre-existing conceits simply loses their direction and focus. The movie starts to wander a bit, and begins to feel like all the stops were pulled-out all not because it was the right thing to do, but because the story and filmmakers had nothing else to do. Which makes all the adrenaline and bone-cracking wear a little thin after a while, but it¿s a small price to pay considering how ¿right¿ most of the movie felt beforehand.

Perhaps the greatest compliment to be be paid any superhero/action movie is a viewer saying the heroes on-screen are people he or she would want on their side when the chips are down. For all of the fluffy, go-lucky, sometimes lame-brained antics thrown at us by this generation of Charlie¿s beautiful Angels, this is definitely a team most people would want at their side ¿ and a team many will probably want to see more of (only in an innocent, platonic, sequel sense ¿ I'm sure¿)

¿ Glen wonders if these Three Beautiful Girls could kick Laurence Fishburne's ass in a Matrix fight...